Not the most SUPER exciting weekend that a Dallas or Dentonite could ask for, but there is some good stuff going on:

FRIDAY


Chris from Gorilla vs Bear will be playing some records upstairs at the Cavern tonight. And while there seems to be two contingents of people on this site (one that digs GVSB and another that doesn't) I think Chris probably has the best American MP3 blog going right now, and I especially dig some of the stuff he's been getting into lately (Os Mutantes, Liars, The Knife, Tropicalia). He'll be playing all that plus some hip hop, electronica, psyche, old school, and some new music that you probably haven't heard unless you check his blog regularly. Should be a cool time for cool kids.

And I'm guess I'm not sure what all the fuss surrounding Crushed Stars (who will be playing downstairs at the Cavern tonight) is all about, but I suppose they are a pretty decent quiet indiefolk group with a couple of standout tracks. Could be worth checking out if you're in that sort of mood. They'll also be playing with the Paper Chase's strange and intriguing Sean Kirkpatrick and New Science Projects, who seem like they should be the most entertaining live show out of the three. They switch between lo fi junkyard folk and grinding noise/beats... and sometimes combine the two to produce god knows what... fans of Bumblebeez 81 and people that like M Ward and Eat Avery's Bones equally will like this a lot. I'm surprised we hadn't heard these guys until today.

Gorch Fock and Snake Trap will be @ DoubleWide tonight as well if you didn't get a chance to check them out last night.

SATUDAY

First of all, Danielson will be playing a free in store at Good Records at 4pm Saturday. When I first heard the new Danielson record a couple months back, I found it really annoying, but somehow (probably based on the recommendation of Defensive Listening) I've gone back and managed to find out that I dig some of the songs, and have even started to really like a few. So if you're like me and you're not sure what you think of this band, I would check out the in store, and if you like it, maybe make your way to Rubber Gloves in Denton to see them play with Pilotdrift and Houston's rockin' Bring Back the Guns later Saturday evening. Will be a good one.

Stephen Ruiz, a DJ and party promoter who has been putting together many of the most cutting edge electronica and experimental music events in the area recently will be having a house party at his place, featuring performances by the excellent ambient/experimental/ sound collage group One Umbrella from Austin and Wanz Dover doing some of his solo electronica stuff. He doesn't want to give out his home address, but he says that absolutely everyone thats willing to act like a decent human being is welcome and encouraged to come out and see a great show in an intimate setting that will also happen to be a house party. He asks that you simply RSVP with a Myspace message to his page (click the link above) and he will respond with directions and info. Shit goes down starting at 10pm, and goes till whenever.

Saturday will also be the Summer Soulcial @ Avenue Arts (825 Exposition) featuring a performance by the Strange Boys and Dj sets from Lollipop Shop, the Smoke, Wanz Dover, Wild in the Streets , Marcos Prado and DJ G. I'm guessing this will be the other good party on Saturday, and theres no reason not to hit this after one of the other shows.

And the excellent iDi* Amin will be playing the Denton Cohesion fest with a bunch of other bands at Texas Jive for five bucks, starting at 2pm. I think iDi is worth the five bucks alone. Click the Cohesion link for more info.

1. The Great Tyrant | Gorch Fock | Snake Trap (J&Js- Free)
Austin's Snake Trap plays a sort of Slint/Fugazi/ Les Savy Fav influenced instrumental progpunk that sounds a bit boring on the old Myspace page, but also sounds like it could be damn good live, especially in a dank little basement like J&Js. They're surely tight with their playing too: check out "28 and 78th demo" on the myspace. Gorch Fock reminds me of a heavy metal Fishbone on acid, which is a good thing, and also of GWAR, which is an I don't know thing. They too sound like they could be a great live band.... check out "scott jernigan" on their myspace page. Finally, our own Great Tyrant is probably not for everyone, but their live show is "Off the hook" for all you kids out there, and frightening and well executed in a Bauhaus meets Cannibal Corpse southern lord type a way. So yes, this is about the closest thing to an all metal show that you'll see on this blog.

2. Ghostcar | The Ebb and Flow | Chao/ Linea Triste (The Cavern)
Shit we love Ghostcar, and if there is a relatively difficult band in DFWd that is actually really easy to get into, its these guys. They're jazz, they're funk, they're hip hop, they're avant garde, they're noise rock, and they are even a little Kraut. And oh yeah, they are completely bad ass. Check out "earthman's overture." Ebb and Flow lean towards the indie side of prog... and I can't seem to find exactly which Chao will be playing tonight... if its the one from Denton, they are pretty good. If anyone knows, post a comment or email me. Linea Triste might be a good reason to show up early and find out for yourself, however. This should be another excellent show on a Thursday night.

3. Dj G's 80's house/electro (Haileys- free)

I'm not sure what I thought Strategies of Beauty would be other than an above average local rock show, but I suppose that I expected it to serve as a microcosmic snapshot of local music, a chance to take the pulse of musicians, scenesters, and anyone else that gives two shits in order to see where this area is musically, and where it might be headed in the near future. Some might respond that this is an overly dramatic, unrealistic and misguided calculation considering that many of the bands that played Strategies have gone more or less unnoticed by 90% of Dallas' local music scene participants, and an even smaller percentage of DFW residents that might consider going to a local show every now and again. But aside from the (only half joking) response that if the majority of Dallas music fans don't dig it then it must be good, I would suggest that the Strategies line up was comprised of a larger percentage of interesting DFW bands than any other show I can think of in recent memory, and despite the relative lack of attention that most of these bands have received thus far from local fans and media, several of them are part of a short list of local groups that actually have a chance to make an impact outside of the area at some point in time.

I think people often forget that while some of the more popular bands in Dallas right now (The Valentines, Deathray Davies, Belafonte, Chemistry Set, etc.) might have sounds that are more commercially viable than the Strategies gang, their chances of going very far outside of being cool on lower Greenville probably aren't very good. Why? Well, its not so much that they're just completely terrible (which several of them are), but more because there are similar bands with very similar sounds in pretty much every large to mid sized city in the United States, and they're all fighting for that one Volkswagen commercial, or that one opening slot on the next Death Cab tour. And while the Dallas version of a watered down Strokes might not be much worse (and could be much better) than the Kansas City or Sacramento versions, it just seems that the competition to reach the markets they are aiming for is much tighter than that for the market that say, Notes from Undergound, Shiny Around the Edges or Eat Avery's Bones might be able to interest. In short, many of the Strategies groups ( and a handful of other local acts) seem to offer something relatively unique, something that might actually catch a Matador rep off guard at SXSW next year. I guess that is why I thought Strategies was sort of a big deal.

And while it might not have been one of the 101 WILDEST parties of the summer in the United States (unless this is an off year for "wild"), the festival was very well attended for a ten hour all local show in a really hot bar (Rubber Gloves: turn on the damn air conditioning!), and most of the acts that the WSJR gang saw were quite solid if not earth shattering, while a couple were extremely captivating.

The show marked the first time I had ever seen Shiny Around the Edges live, and it was really quite impressive. Although it seemed that they were unable to capture some of the doom and gloom ambience of their recorded material (which I'm not even sure is possible in a rock club), they were quite effective in creating tension on stage, building a thin wall of separation between performer and audience that was intense but vaguely welcoming in that it exposed their fragile yet confident personas as they played sparse, minimal songs that built up slowly and broke down quickly. As much as I liked their music (along with the backing pedal steel by Adub), which seems to exist somewhere one the warmer side of Portishead, Broadcast, Palace Brothers and Leonard Cohen, I enjoyed their vocal delivery and subtle stage presence just as much, as it seemed a bit more artistic and thoughtful than most of the Carlos Ds and Karen Os that have come and gone over the past five years, rendering neo post-punk swagger about as boring and predictable as a garage rock yelp. Overall, they are one of the more exciting bands in the area, and their live performance just added to that notion.

Stumptone followed with a capable and at times exhilarating set of shoegaze influenced neopsyche and a slide show background that set a similar mood. How the names Catherine Wheel and Janes Addiction have not been mentioned in a Stumptone review (to my knowledge at least) is a bit of a mystery since they seem to be heavily influenced by both bands, but they don't sound too much like either one to start calling bullshit on anyone. Instead, they really seem to have a good grasp on the shoegaze wall of noise thing, and although the Rubber Gloves mix made it a little difficult to distinguish what they were doing at times, it was clear that they have the capacity to mold and control tuneful noise in a pop context, which to me indicates that they could very well end up being quite successful on a large scale if they can continue to refine and improve on their approach.

The set that seemed the most problematic of the ones we saw came from Fra Pandolf, but it wasn't because the band doesn't have its shit together. The first thing I noticed about them was that their lead singer (Is it Ed? I can't remember) had an exceptionally strong and interesting voice, particularly for a smaller local act. The second thing I noticed was that they didn't emphasize this distinguishing characteristic nearly enough. Maybe it was the fact that the vocals were a bit too low in the mix, but it just seems like their songs would benefit in terms of immediacy and effectiveness if the focus was shifted more towards a structure that centered more around the vocals. Another problem that we noticed right away were the drums: they were simply too busy to accompany what the band seemed to be trying to do otherwise. The drumming was quite good from a technical standpoint, but that was part of the problem: it was much too slick, tight and roll happy for a band that seems to be searching for a little more space in their aggressive guitar layering and impressive starts and stops, which sort of reminded us of Refused with a dose of Chapterhouse and Sunny Day Real Estate. The good news is that these kinds of problems are fixable because the band is obviously more than capable of changing it up and doing less or more where necessary, although the set we saw certainly left something to be desired.

For us, the clear highlight of the night was the closing free jazz/noise explosion set of Notes From Underground, which in about 25 minutes became one of my favorite local live bands, even though I'm not the kind of person that gets easily excited by either noise or free jazz in a live setting. Of course, telling some people that they should totally go check out this noise band with a sax is like telling people that they should go check out getting some dental work done, but I would venture to say that just about anyone with a brain and even the slightest sense of adventure would have been moved by Notes' performance at Rubber Gloves on Saturday. Their free form compositions combined many of the best elements of the other bands that we saw and often took them to new heights. No, it wasn't pop, and you really couldn't tap your feet to it, but I somehow found myself swaying back and forth a bit to songs that didn't really have any kind of constant rhythm, and I was continually impressed with the way they were able to reach ear bleeding levels of noise while still maintaining some kind of melodic element, proving that yes, it can be done. It was one of those rare instances where noise sounded emotional, purposeful, and downright easy to like. And although you can't tell from the picture of them below, they played in an almost completely dark room with a lone white light set against a white sheet in the background, allowing only a slight glimpse at the outlines of the band members as they played. Not only did this add to the effectiveness of their set, but it reminded the audience of the purely abstract nature of their expression, basically leaving well enough alone. I'm sure they're great looking dudes and everything, but I'm glad that all I could do was listen.

I don't know if I was able to pick up on much context surrounding the festival (considering that outside forces caused us to miss half of it), but if local music fans are indeed waiting around for something to happen, I think its safe to say that Strategies at least provided us with something to listen to in the meantime, and who knows: with a little luck, some of these bands could have bright futures in DFW and possibly beyond.

Look... its bands on a stage! (review coming this afternoon)

This one is actually useful if you were at the show and wondering what the hell Notes from Underground actually looks like

The exploding plastic Stumptone


Shiny Around the Edges... I wonder if this is what their living room looks like.

Saw about half of the well attended Strategies of Beauty fest last night, and enjoyed it quite a bit for the most part. We're doing a review on it and stuff, but several members of the WSJR crew are out of town today, which means that we'll have to continue with regularly scheduled programming (including the review) on Wednesday....

and by the way, anyone that didn't stick around for Notes from Underground's finale set last night really missed out.... they completely killed, and have got to be one of the best local live bands that I've seen this year.

And despite blowing out a fucking amp, Nature and Select's set at Monkey Bar on Friday was completely fucking on all night. There was a HUGE and diverse crowd in attendance (the biggest I've ever seen at that place) that consisted of punk rock kids, hipsters, the house crowd, art girls, strippers (or girls that at least looked like strippers), uptown preps, the hip hop set, any other person that you can slap a label on and everyone else in between. Good times for pretty much anyone that isn't completely lame.

So we're going to try doing things a little differently for the next month or so. Since some people have actually emailed us (I know dude, its totally NOT you, right?) to tell us that they would like a little more advance notice on shows, etc, we're going to start doing lists for the entire weekend on either Thursday night or Friday afternoon. It just seems easier. Of course, we'll post last minute concerts and stuff over the weekend, so feel free to check in with us on the weekends too. However, the big list comes now:

FRIDAY

1. Metrognome Collective Pop Festival ($5)
This is another big huge gigantic local music bash going on this weekend, with more of a focus on some of the better local Elephant 6 influenced and indie pop bands (organized by the Metrognome gang and Fishboy). I bet people will have some dumb things to say about this fest AND Strategies tomorrow, but I think there are some good bands playing at both. Our favorites at the Pop fest tonight are clearly: Teenage Symphony, The Shapes, and the Happy Bullets, and we sort of have a soft spot for the humor of Fishboy. Oh, and the whole night will be MCd by our friend Frank. The line up:

The Beatdown-8:00

American Werewolf Academy-8:30

Hardin Sweaty and the Ready to Go-9:00

Tha Bracelets-9:30

Maya Bond-10:00

The Shapes-10:30

Ballroom Dancing-11:00

Teenage Symphony-11:30

Man Factory-12:00

Fishboy-12:30

Happy Bullets-1:00am

Some of these bands are good, some are ok, and few are downright annoying, but this could be one of the most well attended events in the history of Metrognome, so it will likely be a show worth seeing. You'll at least like two or three of the bands there, right?

2. DJ Nature | Select (Monkey Bar)
Yeah, I know. It broke your little indie heart when Expo closed down. You had so many wonderful memories of bad service and bad attitudes that it just killed you to see the place go. Actually, I really liked Expo a lot, but this new place isn't all that different when you think about it. Sure, there are some tikis and crap lying around, but the outside is still cool, and the seating is way better. Not that its going to matter, because The Party will be there tonight, and you should be too if you like dancing and getting trashed without having to put up with all the dumb people that usually go hand in hand with that sort of thing. Smart, sharp crowd, baile funk, hip hop, reggae, and everything else you act like you know about in order to seem cool. Should be a great night with some of the best djs in town.

Also, you can stop by Club One between 9-11 for a few pre party drinks. You'll hear Stephen R, one of the more cutting edge electro promoters and party organizers in Dallas, spinning new wave, industrial and goth.

3. Theater Fire is at Dan's Silverleaf in Denton, and I listened to some Peter and the Wolf stuff today (members of which make up Red Hunter, who is playing with Theater Fire tonight), and it seems Ok I suppose, pretty trad indie folk pop.

4. Chris from GVB will be playing music upstairs at the Cavern tonight, while Sound Team will be downstairs. I'm not going to hate on sound team really, but I'm just not that impressed with their record, although they are a pretty good live band. Sue me.

SATURDAY:

1. Strategies of Beauty (Rubber Gloves $5)
This is the last mention of this fest that you'll see here until our comprehensive 86 page review on Sunday. Go HERE for the line up. Are all these bands the most earth shattering and brilliant you'll ever see? No. But there is some fantastic stuff on this bill that if you don't end up loving, you'll at least find interesting considering that DFWd was able to get something like this together in the first place. Something Defensive Listening said the other day really seems true to me: Dallas and the surrounding area seems to have a fixation with happy go lucky indie pop for some reason. Some of it I like, and a lot of it I don't, but the point is that this festival is a great way to showcase the simple fact that there are a lot of people that aren't completely satisfied with the local music business-as-usual status quo, and that they are ready to do something about it. Like have fun. The wonderful atmospheric noisefolk of Shiny Around the Edges, Chris Garver's outsider influenced country/folk, Stumptone's melodic and aggressive psychedelic, Eat Avery's Bones progpunk on meth, and the noise exploration of Notes from Underground, iDi* Amin and You Are the Universe should be just some of the highlights.

Even if you don't dig some of these bands, haven't heard some of these bands, or think noise rock is crap, I would suggest that this could be one of THE events in local music in 2006, and you should at least shell out the whole five bucks and head up to Rubber Gloves to drink with some drunkards and perhaps meet some like minded musicians, artists, etc. Because if this thing works out for everyone's benefit, whats not to say that more of these will start popping up around the area with different bands, new ideas, and something a bit different from rockabilly and the other typical Dallas shit that has bored us all to tears for years now. I'm sure stuff like Strategies has happened in the past, and thats fine, but I don't really care about the past... and considering the state of local music at large these days, none of us can afford to. Go see a preview of what Dallas and Denton could become in the foreseeable future.

2. Those that can't make it up to Denton should check out Pleasant Grove and Jack with One Eye @ The Cavern. Pleasant Grove might be the only remaining member of the Dallas "old guard" music scene that I like. I saw them end a show with a glorious 20 minute noise marathon a couple months ago, and I thought it was insanely brilliant. Their songs are delicate and blurry and mostly really good.

I don't know what else I can tell you about this band other than that I choose them to be the best (or most entertaining, at least) act playing Strategies of Beauty. I know that's a pretty serious statement when made about such a young band, but I stand by it. They combine so many daring feats of noise and musical acrobatics that they could ride on just one of the many ideas they use to attack an audience. Eight-bit keyboard melodies, skeletal guitar shrapnel, frantic vocals, and a constantly shifting tempo that includes everything from disco beats to Ruins-like revisionist prog references, all played with genuine smiles, ridiculously irreverent banter, and not the slightest bit of pretentiousness. This band's youthful enthusiasm will melt your cynical heart. Well, I've gushed about them enough and I found their responses to my band bio request to be almost as entertaining as their onstage inside jokes. So here's Eat Avery'sBones in their own words...

On their humble beginnings:

"Did we mention our first show was at The Door? Well, it was a real testament to how bad [our] first band really was. We were more concerned with playing covers of "When Doves Cry" and "Summer Nights" from "Grease:the musical", and later, destroying The Door by booking ourselves as fake bands, playing 2 hour sets in the acoustic lounge and breaking every rule the club had laid out. Notable aliases we played under: The Taco Bell Explosion, Belzar, and Frau Junge."

Their sonic development:

"To skip ahead, the band broke-up since after a while fucking around and only playing noise gets old."

Influences:

"We really prefer not to pin down certain bands that we think had a great impact on the way we write music because we want people to make up their own mind on what we might sound like...Its kind of like having four chefs hovering over a pot and all trying to cook something together. You know that all the chefs have a different style and specialty, so in the end what they make is going to taste like shit...but it's going to sound pretty cool while they're doing it."

The Local Scene:

"Lucky for us theres a lot of new and exciting things happening to local music (amongst the piles of the same worn-out diarrhea) and if the trend continues there might be a place for us down the road, hopefully not amongst the diarrhea, though."

Their tender age:

"Obviously we're all pretty young. None of us are old enough to drink, two of us are still in high school. We have a really blatant sense of humor, mostly toilet and sexual humor that comes through in our live shows and in our songs. Costumes we wear on stage are tied to our sense of humor, too."

Overall Philosophy:

"Overall, we're only doing this whole band thing because we enjoy having fun. The entire process of creation to performance of music is a blast for us.The day it stops being fun and starts being unenjoyable is the day we sell our instruments and go have a feast of taco bell and black tar heroin, because that is fun."

(SR NOTE: Eat Avery's Bones' Myspace page is here.)

Ok- in the name of fairness, we'll give credit to Kate Mackley (spelling?) for the photo of Emil Rapstine below. And for the record, we got it off their myspace page and didn't see a copyright on it, so we didn't even consider crediting whoever took it. For future reference, if anyone has a photo that appears on here that we have mistakenly failed to credit or would like to have a photo removed, please email Weshotjr@yahoo.com and let us know. Music stuff:

FIRST: The wonderful people over at Clear Channel are sponsoring a WSJR contest for tonight's Scott Stapp show at Nokia or wherever it is... and this ones just for the ladies! And the gay gents! Anyway, if you want to win, post in the comment thread telling us which Creed song you find most inspirational and why, and the winner will get to blow Scott backstage, and then pray with him that the Republican controlled congress' approval ratings go up so that they can maintain control after the November election (this also happens to be in the best interest of Bush pal Tom Hicks, who is a major Clear Channel shareholder)! Sound sexy and fun? Well if that isn't enough, you'll get an autograph and a free t-shirt! Bonus!

1. Attractive and Popular | Occasional Detroit | Juiceboxxx (J&Js Denton)
So in case you've never witnessed the no wave dance attack Attractive and Popular, tonight would be a good night to do so considering that they are playing with the excellent OD and Juiceboxx at J&Js, where I have decided the pizza and pints rule just as much as anything else. Don't be dumb: go to this show. Starts at 9.

Attractive and Popular will also be playing @ the White House in Denton later tonight (I assume after their first show) with Chief Death Rage, which should rule. Its next door to the yella house in case you don't know.

2. Theater Fire | Red Hunter/ St. Vincent (Double Wide)
Like it or not, Theater Fire could be the best currently active Dallas based band around right now. And I said DALLAS, not Denton or anywhere else. And Theater Fire is actually from Ft. Worth I think, so forget it. And St. Vincent is a GVB fav, so if you're usually down with what Chris is down with, this would be a good reason to go early. Sorry, can't find the Red Hunter myspace and I gotta run.... it couldn't be that great anyway, could it?

3. Dj G 80's House and electronica (Hailey's)